WEEK IN REVIEW: CLARK COUNTY

Monday, Dec. 24, 2007 | 6:55 a.m.

Out-of-towners inevitably ask the question when you pick them up at McCarran International Airport.

Why did you guys build an airport in the middle of town?

If you're like us, you find it a little tedious - and kind of nerdy-sounding - to spend your first few minutes with your visitor explaining Southern Nevada's explosive growth rate, the evolution of the Strip, etc.

So this week, we're providing a photo, circa early 1950s. As you can see, it shows McCarran in the middle of the desert, far from that little town called Las Vegas. A picture says a thousand words.

Speaking of airports in the middle of the desert, what's up with the proposed Ivanpah Valley airport?

It's still in the middle of what airport officials had hoped would be a five-year federal environmental impact study, a process that began in 2005. County officials would like the proposed airport to open in 2017. Like McCarran, it would be a full-scale international airport, but instead of being right next to the Strip, it would be built about six miles north of the California border.

The process, however, is taking a little longer than airport officials had expected.

"I will tell you we're probably eight months behind where we hoped we would be," Clark County Aviation Director Randy Walker said earlier this month. "Unfortunately this is a process we don't control."

One of the hang-ups: Federal and local officials had to resolve differences in how they calculate passenger forecasts, Walker said.

"You have to have all those base issues in place before you can write the (study) to get out to the public," he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration and Bureau of Land Management are conducting the study. For airports in other parts of the country, the study has taken from three to 12 years to complete, Walker said.

Such studies are extremely detailed. Officials are looking at the effects on all kinds of stuff, from plants and animals to some fire rings found at the site.

So will the airport still be able to open by 2017?

It's hard to tell. Although the environmental impact study is taking longer than airport officials had hoped, there are things the county could do to make up the difference.

For one, the county could begin design work for the airport before the study is complete. That comes with some risk, though, because the design work will cost millions of dollars - money that would be wasted if the environmental study finds the Ivanpah site is not feasible.

Still, Walker said, as the study moves forward, the odds of a favorable outcome might increase. That would make early design work less risky. We'll just have to wait and see.

This sounds like a bunch of bureaucratic baloney. Why should I care?

Well, just fewer than half of the valley's visitors arrive by air. Because tourism is Southern Nevada's most important industry, economic growth largely depends on the region's ability to fly people in.

The problem is, McCarran is expected to reach capacity in a few years, perhaps by 2011 or 2012. And because it's not in the middle of the desert anymore, the airport's growth is limited by surrounding development.